Dropbox Inc’s file-storage service for businesses can now be linked with products from companies like International Business Machines Corp, Dell Inc and Splunk Inc, part of the startup’s push to attract corporate customers.
The cloud-storage provider is set to release a programming tool that lets other software companies hook their products into Dropbox so customers can use them together.
The company, which said 100,000 corporations are using Dropbox for Business, said programs that would now work with its service include those for transferring information, preventing data loss and securely storing files that might be needed for court cases.
San Francisco-based Dropbox is trying to boost its appeal to large corporate customers, which already include News Corp and Hyatt Hotels Corp, and add new clients for its pay service for businesses.
Rivals in the cloud-storage space, such as Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc, have been pushing prices down and boosting competition.
“This really expands the scope of Dropbox for Business to larger and larger businesses,” said Ilya Fushman, who heads Dropbox for Business, which was introduced in April last year.
Dropbox for Business customers would also be able to use the new tools to write custom programs that work with the storage service or to connect existing ones.
In all, the company is announcing more than 20 partners whose software would now work with Dropbox, including Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory and Skyhigh Networks Inc.
The company already has a deal with Microsoft to connect its tools to the popular Office productivity software, and with Salesforce.com Inc.
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